The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unspoken (16 page)

“If we are stabbed in that exact spot, we die,” Jack said flatly. “That’s the only real danger to us I know of.”

Meredith clamped down on the hot flare of excitement rising inside her. She couldn’t let Jack sense how she felt. But this was it. This was how they’d avenge Stefan, how they’d take on the latest threat. She had to let Damon know as soon as she could.

“I’ll be careful,” she said.

Jack ran a cold finger down the back of her arm, and Meredith shivered. “I know you will,” he told her, his eyes intent on hers. His fingers suddenly encircled her wrist, and Meredith barely kept herself from flinching away. She needed him to trust her, to keep trusting her. Instead, she smiled, thinking of the worshipful way Sadie and the others looked at Jack, and trying to keep the same look on her own face.

“Let’s go back and see how the sparring’s going, shall we?” he asked. “I don’t trust Nick not to slack off if we leave them alone too long.” Meredith nodded, and they turned toward the warehouse.

But Jack hung back for a moment, his hand strong around Meredith’s wrist. “You’re getting stronger and
stronger,” he told her. “If you stay loyal—if you trust me, the future will belong to us.”

Meredith nodded again stiffly, the smile fixed on her face. Jack was watching her with something close to affection in his eyes, and she felt suddenly, dizzyingly sick.

This had all gone on too long, her time here with Jack and his vampires. She was disgusted by the blood and the killing and by pretending to have turned against her husband and friends and given up on her own humanity. Now it was finally going to end. Meredith couldn’t wait to betray him.

#TVD12AchillesHeel

T
he kid banged his fist against the bars of his cage, froth forming at the corners of his mouth, his eyes wild. His long black bangs flopped into his eyes and he shook them aside. “You can’t keep me here forever,” he snarled, his voice low and savage. “Locked up like this. Better to be dead.”

“Today’s your lucky day, then.”
Starvation didn’t seem to be killing the kid,
Damon thought, but he didn’t look good. His already skinny face was gaunt, his cheeks hollow and his bones sharp.

The young manmade vampire swiped suddenly at Damon through the bars, hands twisted into claws, and Damon dodged out of the way. Hunger didn’t seem to be making the kid any slower or weaker.

But now they knew how to kill him. Damon felt like he was fizzing with excitement. When he looked at the kid, he didn’t see just another vampire. He saw the synthetic vampires who had hunted him through Europe, who had killed Katherine. He saw Stefan’s murderer.

Nothing Damon had done, none of the staking and burning and starving had helped defuse his fury.

But now, finally, he was going to get to kill him. And, after him, the rest of them. Damon realized his mouth was watering in anticipation.

He could hear the others on the basement stairs. When Meredith had called Damon to tell him about the fake vampires’ vulnerable spot, he had told Elena, and of course she had called the others to join them. They’d try it out on the kid, and then they’d kill Jack.

Damon’s heart filled with fierce happiness. Finally, Stefan would be avenged.

They filed in: Elena, Bonnie, and Meredith, their arms linked, followed closely by Jasmine and Matt, hand in hand.

“He’s looking a little skinny, Damon,” Meredith commented lightly. She was clearly buzzing with excitement, too—and why not? What she’d been working for, spying on Jack for, was finally happening.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he replied, and watched the kid’s eyes widen as he looked back and forth between them, picking up on something different from Damon’s
usual taunting. Did the young synthetic vampire know Jack’s secret? Damon thought probably not, and he shot the kid a private, vicious smile.

He turned his attention back to Meredith. “How did you happen to discover how to kill them, anyway?”
He
knew, of course, but he wondered what Meredith had told the others.

“One of the hunters down in Atlanta accidentally hit the right spot in a fight,” she answered smoothly. “Even Jack’s luck had to run out sometime.”

“I hope it works,” Bonnie said. “But even more, I’m just glad you’re
home
, Meredith.” She squeezed Meredith’s arm, her small face glowing with affection.

The others joined in, exclaiming about how they’d missed Meredith, and Damon took the opportunity to murmur, too low for any human to hear, “How’d you get away?”

Meredith glanced at him over Bonnie’s head with a wry smile. “I’m supposed to be looking for you,” she murmured back. “Killing you is pretty high on Jack’s list.”

Wonderful.
Damon had been hoping Jack had other things on his mind.

The young vampire was watching them, frowning in confusion. He could hear them, and he could tell Meredith was like him, of course he could. No doubt he was wondering if she’d really turned against Jack. It seemed like Jack’s vampires were, on the whole, insanely loyal.

All the more reason to kill this one, so he never got a chance to report back to Jack.

“Stake,” Damon demanded, and Matt slipped one into his hand.

Before the young vampire had a chance to react, Damon had unlocked the cage and had one arm tightly around his neck, yanking his head forward to show the base of his skull. “Scar,” Damon said, seeing the thin white line, and shoved the stake straight into it.

The point of the stake went all the way through the kid’s neck, the sharp tip sticking out just below his chin in front. He gagged and choked, clawing at it, then fell to his knees, one arm still awkwardly pulled up by the handcuff connecting his wrist to the bars.

Damon stepped back and watched blood pool down the young vampire’s neck and chest, puddling on the floor beneath him. The kid knocked the stake free at last, but slid limply farther down the bars, supported only by the one thin arm chained to them.

He let out a harsh, blood-choked breath, and his body stiffened, his eyes rolling back into his head.

Then he lay still. He wasn’t breathing. Damon listened, and heard nothing: no heartbeat, no struggle to breathe.

“We did it,” Meredith said softly. Her eyes were wide and shining with excitement.

“Wow,” Matt said. “That was, um… surprisingly easy.”

With a sudden jerk, the vampire spasmed on the floor, his eyes flying open. Then he leaped to his feet, his handcuff rattling. The gash in his neck was healing, new pink skin stretching across it. He growled and swiped at Damon through the bars. Damon, caught off balance, stumbled and almost fell. The vampire’s sharp nails cut into his leg, and Damon shook him off, swearing.

It didn’t work.
Damon could feel Elena’s leaden misery filling him, mixing with his own red-hot rage.

“I’m sorry,” he said, desperately, and reached for her hand.

Then the back of his neck began to prickle uncomfortably. Something
wrong
, getting closer.

Jack’s voice, as cold as ice, came suddenly from behind them. “Meredith, I expected so much more from you.”

Damon whipped around.

Jack was at the end of the row of dusty cages, flanked by a crowd of his vampires. A long hunting knife gleamed in his hand.

“It was a trap,” Meredith said flatly.

“Of course it was a trap,” Jack said, his lips curling into a sneer. “It was a test, too, and you failed.”

With that, Jack and his vampires charged.

Two of them, a stocky guy and a blond-haired girl, slammed into Damon, one on each side, the girl driving her arm against his throat while the guy swept a leg against Damon’s, trying to knock him off balance.

The move felt like one of Meredith’s to him. She’d been teaching them.
Wonderful
, Damon thought, grabbing the guy’s leg and flinging him backward onto the hard concrete floor. The last thing they needed was a crowd of vampire hunter–trained vampires. He managed to snap the girl’s neck, giving himself some breathing room, but he knew she wouldn’t stay down for long.

Snarling, Damon looked around for Elena and saw that she was safe for the moment. She was in a corner at one end of the long row of storage cages, her hands extended. The air shimmered slightly around her. She must be making some sort of Guardian force field around herself, because no vampire was coming near her. As he watched, the shimmer around her expanded, encompassing the rest of their group for a moment, but then it shrank back. She was trying to protect them all, but it didn’t look like she could work up the Power.

Matt had Jasmine and Bonnie backed into a corner behind him and was swinging a stave at the lanky vampire coming toward them, driving it into him again and again. The vampire flinched under the blows, but kept coming toward them, his wounds healing faster than Matt could inflict them.

Bonnie was fumbling in her purse, no doubt looking for a weapon. Matt was no coward, but the vampire was just toying with him—one quick move, and the human would fall. Before Damon could spring forward to save the girls,
Meredith was there, slamming the other vampire against the wall and efficiently breaking his neck.

There was the rattle of metal behind him, and suddenly someone landed on Damon’s back, thin strong arms twining around his throat. He automatically slammed his back against the wall, forcing a grunt of pain from his assailant. A sharp edge of metal—handcuffs, Damon realized—on his opponent’s wrist pressed against Damon’s throat. Someone had let the kid loose from his cage.

The young vampire was furious and half-mad with hunger. He clung on tight and bit down, working his sharp fangs savagely into Damon’s neck.

Damon slammed backward into the wall again, trying to get rid of him. The kid’s desperation gave him strength, though, and he held on tighter.

Distracted by the young vampire, Damon almost missed Bonnie’s fierce gesture, her hands shooting up into the air. There was a burst of blinding white light and suddenly Damon was flying backward.

His elbow scraped painfully along the floor as the force of Bonnie’s explosion shoved him along, but at least it had knocked the kid off his back. They landed side by side, and glared at each other, both flat on the ground and gasping with effort. The kid’s mouth was sloppy with blood.

All the vampires were on the ground, Damon realized. Jack was the fastest back on his feet, and he dragged
Meredith up with him, his long knife pressed tightly against her throat. A thin line of blood dripped down Meredith’s neck, soaking the edge of her dark blue T-shirt.

Everyone froze. Damon could hear the young vampire panting beside him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off Meredith, not even to snap the kid’s neck.

“Go ahead,” Meredith said bitterly. “Cut my head off. See if that’ll kill me.”

Jack smiled. “Oh, I know how to kill you,” he said softly. “But that would be giving you what you want.” His eyes flicked to Damon. “Immortality’s quite the curse, isn’t it, Salvatore?”

Faster than even Damon’s eyes could follow, Jack stabbed the knife viciously down, cutting through Meredith’s stomach. Then, he let go and let her fall. Meredith dropped to her knees, her hands desperately trying to hold the gaping wound together. Bonnie screamed, and Matt shouted, “Meredith!” sounding horrified. Damon only winced—that looked painful.

As they watched, the wound began to heal. In just a few seconds, Meredith’s flesh was whole again beneath the rip in her shirt. Elena gasped, and Jasmine whimpered.

Jack’s smile spread wider. “I thought you must have been lying to them. What do you think they’ll say, now that they know you’re one of mine?”

Bonnie began to chant in Latin, her voice hard and furious. A moment later, Elena joined her. She raised her hands above her head, seeming to draw on their energy, and a shimmer appeared above her.

Jack eyed them, and then grinned at Damon. “I’ll see you soon, Salvatore.” He snapped his fingers, and in a moment, his vampires were with him.

Damon pulled himself to his feet, ready to continue the fight, but Jack and his team were already gone. Damon could hear their footfalls, faint and far away.

Meredith, her face ghost-pale, climbed slowly to her feet. Her wound was already closing. She looked at her friends, who were staring back at her. Eyes wet, she looked from one human to another, taking in their horror. Damon could hear her heart pounding and her shaky, panicked breaths.

“I—I…” Meredith grasped the edges of her cut shirt and pulled them together, as if to hide the evidence of what she was. But she’d been revealed. There was no way to hide it now.

#TVD12TheTruthComesOut